Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Review: Christopher Saucedo's "Red Cross Blankets"

Christopher Saucedo's talk in the Cochenour Gallery.
His work is on view until November 29.

On November 8, 2013, the latest exhibit at Georgetown College’s Cochenour gallery opened with an art talk by sculptor Christopher Saucedo and his show Red Cross Blankets. The show primarily consists of unorthodox self-portraits composed of mixed mediums. The images used are related to the artist’s measure in fluid volume through familiar liquid containers such as soda cans, coffee mugs, milk cartons, gallon jugs, shot glass, and other glasses. According to the artist, he was inspired the aftermath in his homes in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and in New York following Hurricane Sandy in 2012 when water remained in various containers from the flood water.

Saucedo is known as a sculptor and three-dimensional images, yet this show seemed to be made up mainly of two-dimensional works including two embroidered Red Cross blankets, three wooden canvases that have been branded with images of Saucedo’s container as well as ‘puzzle’ like piece with the container images broken up and rearranged, and a wooden and aluminum mobile that would remind one of a wind chime. These works prove that Saucedo is capable of breaking the rules in the area of traditional portraiture by presenting a different kind of visual representation of an individual.

In the traditional sense, one expects a portrait to be a realistic image to mimic the likeness of the subject and their features. This means it is an image meant to recreate life. However Saucedo takes this idea of a self-portrait being a visual presentation and puts a conceptual spin on it. He represents himself through empirical measure by fluid volume and the containers that hold the amount that equal his mass. So it places Saucedo’s representations on a grander scale through an intellectual perspective and yet a simpler scale through the common images used in his self-depiction.

Overall, it was good talk as Saucedo was very encouraging for questions and comments and the group was able to a good discussion of his works and the sentiment behind them. Also it was interesting to see an artist known for working mainly with 3-D pieces to execute somewhat 2-D works very well. Though on another note, I feel that the show could have been renamed to fit the titles of the works, like Fluid Volume Series instead on Red Cross Blankets, as the blankets only made up two of the pieces present in the show.

It depends on how you perceive the works. On the one hand, it’s descriptive because Saucedo is displaying the fact what of his mass is, something that is to him like eye or hair color, height, or face shape is to others; just something we include in the list of information we use to indentify ourselves. On the other, it’s symbolic as it isolates this descriptive factor and represents the value of the individual through a relatable equivalent of common containers. This can either show how much or how little a person can matter by relating their value to mundane objects.